Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Bhangrā - We picked this name while Adam Colton was off the grid in Morocco in order to twist his Nipples into creating Bollywood style skate films. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Bhangra:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhangra

Yes, the names for our boards are a bit weird and hard to pronounce, but we were all attacked by zombies last year and are missing half our brains.

We wanted to create a more compact dancing/freestyle board that you could basically do everything on. A board that has plenty of room to get your dancing groove on and is smaller, lighter, and easier to throw around. Something that is not overly huge, can bust out steezy slides, and can be carried and fit into a trunk easier. Can you downhill on this board? Probably, but it is not a DH board.

Rocker

We are really stoked on the rocker in this board (the board has a slight “U” bend to it). The original prototype had camber and felt good, but we decided to put some rocker in it and bam a ram, it instantly felt so much better. The rocker just sinks you into the board and gives you that extra cushy, locked in feel. Feels great for dancing, makes sliding a lot easier and comfortable, and puts the board lower to the ground, making pushing a tad bit easier.

Concave

HURRAY, we added concave! We added a mellow “U” concave to give you more confidence when sliding. The concave also helps lock your feet in when landing big spins and such. The concave is mellow and does not feel uncomfortable for footwork moves.

Nose and Tail Kicks

More nose and tail curvatures allow easier catching of the nose and tail. If you get your timing down, yes you can ollie the Bhangra. Not easy, but it can be done. Both the nose and tail will lock your feet in nicely for manuals, but the different lengths result in distinct feelings of balance and pop. You may find riding the board in a certain direction better for some tricks; for example, the tail is really good for catching shuvits-to-manuals, while the nose feels better for hang ten manuals.

Functional Griptape Design

This is our most thought out grip design to date featuring a functional, shoe saving design and two different types of grip tape, oh yes.

For the main standing platform, we used a mellower grip with a functional pattern to save your shoes. As you all know, when you do pivot motions on grip tape you slowly wear out the balls of your shoes; you are basically grinding away your soles on sandpaper. We cut out this grip design so that when you do your spinning moves, most of your shoe will move freely on the bamboo, not the grip tape. We also designed it so you still have plenty of grip tape on the rail of the board for confidence when sliding.

We used a gnarlier, gripper grip tape on the nose and tail to help give you that extra locked in feeling when holding out steezy manuals for the ladies and/or gentlemen. Plus the extra grip makes it easier to catch the nose and tail for quick shuvit-to-manual moves.

Flex

The Bhangra comes in two flexes:

FLEX 2 (90-190+ lbs) is what Adam S. (150 lbs) and Adam C. (160 lbs) ride. The Adam’s prefer a board with a bit of flex to it (feels a lot better for freestyle). You can still take the flex 2 plenty fast and do slides comfortably, thanks to the rocker and concave.

FLEX 1 (150-250+ lbs) is definitely stiffer, and if you are 160 lbs it will only flex slightly under you. If you like stiffer boards and plan on doing hard pounding tricks with this board or weigh more (over 190 lbs), this is your board.

Graphic

For this graphic we decided to try something new. We took a collage of Adam Colton’s scary monster faces meshed together and screaming with joy and burned/branded them into the bottom of the board. If you feed them, they will stay happy.

The top graphic is sick and simple. It is a monster’s eye surrounded by a swirling line. If you spin on the swirling lines, you will get more speed… hahaha.

Construction

We are stoked to say this is our most organic board to date. We have created a durable beast bound together with jello and spider tears. Actually, the board is constructed from bamboo, cork and epoxy bio-resin. We used no fiberglass in this board but were able to get the strength and flex characteristics we wanted by using two vertical cores of vert-lam bamboo with cork in the middle for weight reduction and dampening. The top of the board is a cross-ply of bamboo vert-lam to strengthen the board across the width and we use a similar ply in the center (next to the cork) to stiffen up the flex.

Here is a brief sample of some of the field testing we did to test the Bhangra's durability:

Epoxy Bio-Resin

Not sure if you knew this, but resin plays a big part in how a board feels. We tried out a variety of resins, each having their own energy return properties and flex characteristics. For a board like this, we really dug a more mellow, damp feeling resin. Something that just kind of sinks nicely under your feet and does not have so much energy return that it wants to buck you off. We classify the flex as soft, damp, almost "dead" flex. In contrast a Dervish has a more lively, springy flex to it. So we found the perfect resin for this board and are even more stoked because it is a bio-resin and tastes good in cereal, hahaha.

Wheel Wells

We designed functional wheel wells to accommodate several brands of 180mm trucks and 70mm wheels without risers. They will prevent wheelbite in most circumstances; however, you may encounter bite if you run super loose trucks with soft bushings.

Wheels: This board is intended to ride with 70mm or smaller wheels. 75mm wheels are too big and you will have to use a bunch of risers to avoid the risk of getting wheel bite. Plus, 70mm is such a nice, lightweight size to throw around, do tricks on, and slide.

Adam Stokowski, Dane Webber and Adam Colton like this board set up with 86a Stimulus wheel for sliding and shuvit spin moves. The 86a is a good all round wheel for their style and provides extra leeway: when landing a shuvit wrong, the wheels will slide the extra bit around instead of gripping and bucking you off. A softer wheel will be more comfortable for cruising long distances, cross-stepping, manuals and such.